Episode 104: Assassin
Overview Flash is amazed when a rift opens up from Mongo, and his father steps through. Dale isn't sure that this is a time for celebration; and her suspicions are proved right when Professor Gordon's colleagues are killed, one by one. Synopsis Opening Rankol tells Ming that the preparations have been completed. Ming gives the order to continue: "Send him immediately." In Zarkov's laboratory, Baylin is dismissive as Zarkov struggles to figure out how to recharge her weapons. The "Rift alert" goes off, alerting them to a new rift that's opened in town. Flash and Baylin hurry to the location, outside a pizza parlor. They don't see any sign that something's come through, but Flash notices that the pizza place's security camera is pointed outside to the street. They call Dale, who uses her press pass to persuade the owner to give her a copy of the security camera footage. Back at the lab, Flash, Dale, Baylin and Zarkov fast-forward through the tape, and find the moment when the rift opened. Flash's eyes widen when they see a gray-haired man step through. Flash and Zarkov both recognize the man, it's Lawrence Gordon. Act 1 Flash is stunned -- for the first time in thirteen years, he's seeing his father. He wants to see if his dad has reached home by now... but Dale is worried that this is too good to be true. "We've all seen what Ming can do to people," she reminds him. Flash ignores her concern, and hurries out. Dale follows Flash to his house, where he's crestfallen to discover that his father isn't there. They're both surprised when Dale's fiancee, Joe, comes to the house. Dale has trouble coming up with a decent excuse for being at her ex-boyfriend's house, but Flash supplies one: She's helping him write an advertisement for G & G Car Craft. Joe is a little skeptical, but he's there in his role as a police detective. There was a carjacking downtown today, and the victim got a good look at the perpetrator. Joe has a police sketch -- which looks just like Flash's dad. Flash and Dale assure Joe that Flash's father is dead, and didn't have a twin. Dale asks if Joe has any other leads, and Joe mentions that the carjacker didn't disable the LoJack. The car was recovered by the police in Washington, D.C. In D.C., Lawrence Gordon finds his old colleague, Dr. Martin Landry, at Lincoln Park. Landry is amazed to see his old friend alive again -- especially when Gordon says that he's been away on another planet for the last decade. Landry is thrilled to have proof that their theories have worked. He says that the Portage Initiative is still active -- he's still working, and so is Dr. Mary Hiller at the Baltimore facility. Then Gordon shows Landry something that he's picked up on the other planet -- a chunky green device that lights up when Gordon presses a button. Suddenly, bright blue beams shoot out of the device's two ports, attaching themselves in an instant to the side of Landry's head. Landry's face goes blank as Gordon activates the device. A graphic on the machine shows Landry's skull as his brain is drained of information. When it's finished, Gordon pats the brain-dead Landry, and says, "Now, Martin, old friend, it's time to say goodbye. This time, forever..." Act 2 Flash excuses himself, and jumps in his car. Dale distracts Joe by inviting him to lunch, and the two share a kiss. Flash travels to the lab, where he grills Zarkov about Gordon's work in D.C. Zarkov admits that after Gordon disappeared in the rift, he looked through Gordon's private papers and found memos from Dr. Landry, who worked for a political think tank. He tried to contact Landry, who stonewalled and denied ever knowing Gordon. Flash calls Dale, who's back at work at WIAD-4. He asks her to track down Landry's contact information. She expects that he's on his way to pick her up, and she's disappointed to find out that Flash and Baylin are already on their way to D.C. Flash and Baylin speed to Phazer Laboratories, the research facility where Landry works. They pose as reporters for the Washington Post -- or the Washington Stick, as Baylin calls it. The security guard refuses to let them in, denying that Dr. Landry works there. Not an easy girl to discourage, Baylin climbs up the side of the building, looking for another entrance. As she approaches the window to Landry's office, it suddenly explodes in a sheet of flame. Baylin is thrown to the ground. Act 3 Panicked, Flash rushes to Baylin's side; she's out cold, but revives quickly. Alarms are sounding, and people are streaming out of the building, panicked. Dale calls Flash, and tells him that she's heard that Landry's body was found in Lincoln Park. Flash rushes into the building's lobby and checks the visitors' log. He finds that Landry just checked in a half hour ago. Noting that he shouldn't be hanging around a federal crime scene, he calls Zarkov, and asks him to hack into the security system, and erase him from the security camera footage. Feeling left out, Dale approaches Joe to see if he can get any information on Landry's murder. Meanwhile, "Gordon" tracks Dr. Hiller to a D.C. coffee shop, where he uses a hidden device to scan her. Flash and Baylin come to Dale's station, where she has information from Landry's autopsy. He had two strange scars on his skull, and his brain had turned to jelly. Baylin immediately recognizes the description -- it's a Mind tap, a device that Ming uses to extract information from people's brains. Flash refuses to believe that his father is a murderer. Dale points out the evidence seems pretty clear. At the lab, Zarkov succeeds in erasing Flash and Baylin from the security tapes. Flash shows him a picture of Landry from the autopsy report, and Zarkov recognizes the man. He looks through his files, and finds an old picture of Gordon, Landry and Hiller together. Zarkov knows who Hiller is -- she had him committed years ago, when he was asking too many uncomfortable questions about Gordon's work in D.C. Zarkov spent three years in an institution; this is the first that Flash has heard of it. Convinced that Hiller is in danger, Flash and Baylin rush to save her. Meanwhile, the assasssin arrives at the Baltimore facility, now disguised as Dr. Hiller. She enters the lab, where the real Dr. Hiller is creating an active rift. She's shocked to see her double walk in. The assassin activates the mind-tap, and the blue beams attach to Hiller's head... Act 4 Flash and Baylin arrive at Hiller's facility, and Baylin knocks the security guard cold in order to gain entrance. They find Hiller's lab, where the assassin switches off his "morphing" device, revealing the black-clad form of a Patriot. The Patriot engages in a spirited firefight with Baylin. Flash grabs the gun, but he takes on the form of Flash's dad, distracting him long enough to escape. Flash looks around the lab, and discovers that Hiller was working on rift technology. They realize that Ming is trying to get a monopoly on creating rifts -- and to do that, the only remaining target is Zarkov. Flash calls Dale, and tells her to get Zarkov out of his lab and to safety. Zarkov is reluctant to go, but Dale insists, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him to her car. She tells him that she's taking him to the Gordon's cabin, near Stickley Lake. As Dale's car speeds away, a vagrant who was crouching near the dumpster hits a switch, and turns into the Patriot assassin. He approaches Zarkov's lab. On the way back to Kendall, Baylin tries to comfort Flash. She tells him that his father might still be alive -- Ming doesn't destroy people if they're useful to him. They arrive at Zarkov's lab, where Baylin finds that the assassin has left a powerful bomb to destroy the laboratory. The bomb is primed to go off in thirty seconds. Flash says she can't throw it out onto the street, so Baylin says she knows another way. She carefully removes a crucial piece of the bomb, and destroys the alkaline trigger pattern by swallowing the trigger, and letting her stomach acids dissolve it. It works; the bomb doesn't explode. "You're an amazing woman," Flash observes. Flash and Baylin leave the lab -- and they find that the Patriot has taken Flash's car. They realize he must be heading for the cabin, so Flash takes Zarkov's RV. Flash tries to call Dale, but she has no reception in the mountains. Zarkov and Dale get to the cabin, and try to stay calm. Then "Flash" pulls up in his car. Act 5 "Flash" approaches, adopting a friendly tone, but Dale sees through the impostor easily -- he drove through the mud on the way up to the cabin and scratched his paint, but doesn't seem to care about his beloved '67 Firebird. She distracts him for a moment, then pulls Zarkov away into the woods. Furious, "Flash" pulls out an ion pistol and follows, firing at them. Dale and Zarkov hurry through the woods, looking for a place to hide as the assassin lets off shots. Flash and Baylin arrive, and see Flash's car parked outside the cabin. They hear the whine of ion pistol shots in the forest, and they take off in that direction. They catch up with the assassin just as he's holding Dale and Zarkov at gunpoint. Baylin blasts the gun out of "Flash's" hand... and then the power in her weapon goes dead. Flash jumps into the fight, attacking his double. The pair end up wrestling on the ground. Dale picks up the assassin's gun, and tells the Flashes to be still. Both look at her with innocence. Dale isn't sure which one to shoot. One of them smirks, "Dale, come on, you know you can't shoot me. You love me. You know you do." Dale gulps, unsure. "And I love you," he says. Dale's gaze hardens. She fires at that Flash, knocking him to the ground. The dead "Flash" begins to change, the morphing device shorting out of control; Dale chose the right one to shoot. Baylin asks how she knew which was the real Flash. "Let's just call it woman's intuition," Dale sighs. Later, Flash and Dale have a moment together as Zarkov and Baylin search the woods for the mind-tap device that the Patriot dropped. He thanks her for everything she's done. "What are friends for?" she says, although there is obvious unspoken feeling between them. Being at the cabin, Flash's memories of his dad are very strong: "Like, he could walk through that door at any second. Crazy, huh?" "No, it's hope," Dale says. "It's the only thing that keeps us going." They look at each other. Then Flash reminds her that she's going to have time to make her dinner with Joe. "He's a good guy," Flash says. "Takes one to know one," Dale agrees. On Mongo, Rankol reports to Ming that rift has closed, but the Patriot hasn't returned. Ming is disappointed with Rankol's new invention, but Rankol says that the organic cloaker still has potential. Ming ignores this, and tells Rankol to send a retrieval probe to find the mind-tap and rescue the data. Additionally, Ming orders that the family of the Patriot who failed him will have their water rations cut in half. In the woods, Zarkov and Baylin can't find the Mind tap. Flash urges them to give up for now, and come back in the morning: "After all, if we can't find it, neither can Ming." As they leave, the retrieval probe appears. It homes in on the mind-tap, and brings it back to Mongo. Cast Regulars *Eric Johnson: Flash Gordon *Gina Holden: Dale Arden *Karen Cliche: Baylin *Jody Racicot: Dr. Hans Zarkov *John Ralston: Ming Guest starring *Jonathan Lloyd Walker: Rankol *Giles Panton: Joe Wylee *Jill Teed: Norah Gordon Featuring *Bruce Dawson: Lawrence Gordon External links *"Flash Gordon vs. the Chameleon", Zap2it blog review. *"Flash Gordon: "Assassin" Review", IGN review. Gallery 104